Issue 10
Spring/Summer 2004

The Kentucky Institute for the Environment and Sustainable Development

JUSTICE AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Environmental Injustice: A Look at the Pentagon’s
Chemical Weapons Disposal Program

by
Craig Williams, Director
Chemical Weapons Working Group
www.cwwg.org

Principles and History of Environmental Justice
To the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, and consistent with the principles set forth in the report on the National Performance Review, each Federal agency shall make achieving environmental justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the United States and its territories and possessions, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Commonwealth of the Mariana Islands (emphasis added).
--President’s Executive Order on Environmental Justice, 1994
    The above 1994 Executive Order calling on each federal agency to make achieving environmental justice part of its mission obviously includes the most powerful and highly funded agency-- the Department of Defense and its service branches, including the U.S. Army.  Unfortunately, it is often the most powerful federal entities which are the least likely to adhere to directives calling on them to protect low-income and minority populations of the U.S.   The Army, with its Chemical Weapons Disposal Program, has proven itself no exception.  Our nation’s international obligation to destroy the chemical weapons stored at Army depots across the country has resulted in an Army program that adversely affects low-income and/or minority communities unnecessarily and disproportionately.
   
    Historically race and class discrimination has taken many shapes and subsequent to the beginning of the industrial age, this discrimination came to include making people of color and the poor the unwilling recipients of toxic waste that people of privilege rarely have to endure.  Wielding political clout, wealthy white communities can ensure that landfills, hazardous waste incinerators and polluting industries stay far away from their backyards.   These communities make sure that they do not become victims of what environmental justice advocates at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in January 1999 called “toxic terrorism” waged against descendants of African people.
   
    Although minority and low-income communities had long recognized that they were the targets for this type of “terrorism,” it was only in the early 1980s, that an environmental justice/equity movement was publicly sparked around events in rural North Carolina.  In a predominately African-America and low-income community in Warren County, North Carolina officials decided to build a toxic waste landfill for the disposal of PCBs-contaminated soil removed from 14 counties throughout the state.  Pressure from civil rights and environmental activists resulted in a report by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) which found that three out of every four landfills in the EPA’s Region IV, were located near predominately minority communities. (U.S. General Accounting Office)
   
    The GAO report was followed in 1987 by a milestone report by the United Church of Christ’s Commission on Racial Justice which showed that the most significant factor in determining the siting of hazardous waste facilities, nationwide, was race (United Church of Christ). 
   
   
Milestones of the Environmental Justice Movement
There are many milestones within the history of the Civil Rights/Environmental Justice Movement, here are some of the most notable:


1964
U.S. Congress passes the Civil Rights Act, 1964. Title VI prohibits use of federal funds to discriminate based on race, color, and national origin.

1969
Ralph Abascal of the California Rural Legal Assistance files suit on behalf of six migrant farm workers that ultimately resulted in ban of the pesticide DDT. Congress passes the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)

1970
The United States Public Health Services (USPHS) acknowledged that lead poisoning was disproportionately impacting African Americans and Hispanic children.

1971
Presidents’ Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) annual report acknowledges racial discrimination adversely affects urban poor and quality of their environment.

1979
Linda McKeever Bullard files Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, Inc. lawsuit on behalf of Houston’s Northeast Community Action Group, the first civil rights suit challenging the siting of a waste facility.

1982
Warren County residents protest the siting of a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) landfill in Warren County, North Carolina. It is also noteworthy that it was in Warren County that Dr. Benjamin Chavis coined the term “environmental racism”.

1983
U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) publishes Siting of Hazardous Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities. The GAO report found that 3 out of 4 the off-site commercial hazardous waste facilities in EPA Region IV are located in African American communities. However, African Americans make up just one-fifth of the region’s population.

1987
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice issues the famous Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States report, the first national study to correlate waste facility siting and race.

1989
Morrisonville, Louisiana relocation (Dow Chemical Company buyout). The Great Louisiana Toxic March led by the Gulf Coast Tenants and communities in “Cancer Alley”.

1990
Robert D. Bullard publishes Dumping in Dixie, the first textbook on environmental justice. The Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) was established.

1991
In October, The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit was held in Washington, DC, attracting over 1,000 participants.

1992
First edition of the People of Color Environmental Groups Directory published by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

1993
Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) forms to inject an Asian Pacific Islander perspective into the environmental justice movement.

1994
In February, President Bill Clinton issues Executive Order 12989, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.”

1995
Environmental justice delegates participate in the 4th World Conference on Women, Beijing.

1996
The African American Environmental Justice Action Network (AAEJAN) was established.

1997
President Clinton issues Executive Order 13045 protecting Children from Environmental Health and Safety Risks.

1998
More than a dozen Bishops and church leaders in the Council of Black Churches participate in “Toxic Tour of Cancer Alley.” The church leaders on the tour represent over 17 million African Americans.

1999
Congressional Black Caucus Chair James Clyburn (D-SC) convenes “Environmental Justice: at  Hilton Head, SC.

2000
NBEJN coordinates Congressional Black Caucus Hearing on environmental justice, Washington, DC.

2001
Environmental justice leaders participate in World Conference against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban, South Africa, and the Climate Justice Summit in The Hague, Netherlands.

Residents of Anniston, Alabama Sweet Valley/Cobb Town Environmental Task Force won a $42.8 million settlement against Monsanto chemical company. The community had to be relocated because of PCB contamination.

2002
Environmental justice delegates participate in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Rio +10 Earth Summit, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Second People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit convened in Washington, DC.
(Environmental Justice Resource Center, 2004)


     The 1991 multinational People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit adopted, among others, the following “Principles of Environmental Justice”: 
(People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, 1991)

The U.S. Chemical Disposal Program
    Unfortunately, patterns of discrimination are alive and well in the military, and the Army’s Chemical Weapons Demilitarization Program is an especially egregious example of just such acts against minorities and the poor.
   
    In 1985, the U. S. Congress directed that the nation rid itself of this particular class of weapons of mass destruction--undoubtedly a step forward for mankind (Public Law 99-145).  And, in 1997, the United States Senate ratified the international Chemical Weapons Convention, joining over 100 countries in outlawing the manufacture, stockpiling, exporting or possession of chemical weapons--another positive step (Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons).
   
    Army efforts to comply with its Congressional-directed obligation to destroy these deadly weapons have slowly moved along . Almost 20 years since the 1985  directive, the U.S. has “disposed” of,  through incineration, approximately 26% of the original 30,000 tons of chemical warfare agents stored at eight Army Depots in the lower forty-eight states and one site in the Pacific.  (Program Manager for the Elimination of Chemical Weapons).
   
    The Army calls this progress, but many folks in the communities in which the Army has built massive chemical weapons incinerator complexes have an altogether different view.  They believe the Army is poisoning them needlessly via the toxic chemicals, heavy metals and uncombusted warfare agents that are emitted daily from the  smokestacks of these facilities.  Since the Army started incinerating chemical weapons in 1990, only a quarter of the stockpile has been destroyed.  It is predicted that chemical weapons will be burning in this country for at least another eight to ten years before the destruction program is completed.  
   
    Battles between the Army and communities living in the shadow of these weapons have long raged over the Army’s choice of incineration as the destruction method.  Between 1985 and 1996 citizens from all nine locations fought for safer, less polluting and more controlled destruction technologies, and in 1997 citizens in two states--Maryland and Indiana--won their fight which resulted in the Army being forced to use the more benign process of neutralization rather than incineration (U.S. Army ROD 1997).  That same year, three other states--Alabama, Arkansas and Oregon--issued the Army permits to begin constructing incinerators (ADEM, ADPCE, ODEQ). Incineration on a small island in the Pacific, Johnston Atoll, had been underway since 1990, and by this time a chemical weapons incineration complex was already built in Utah. 
   
    It wasn’t until 2002-2003 that residents at the remaining two sites--Colorado and Kentucky--also won their fight for safer neutralization destruction methods (U.S. Army RODs 2002/2003).  So, here we are in 2004,  and we have four U.S. communities in which the Army is either burning or poised to burn hundreds of tons of the most lethal chemicals ever made, and four communities in which the weapons will be destroyed in a safer, more protective and controlled manner.
   
    Not surprisingly, the demographics of the eight communities show an unmistakable connection between the percentage of black, indigenous and/or poor populations at each site and each community’s ability or non-ability to turn the Pentagon’s dangerous burn decision around .

Comparing Communities
    Here are brief demographic sketches of those communities where incineration has occurred or where citizens are still fighting incineration of chemical weapons.
      Of course it comes as no surprise that “others” have more clout  in D.C., including with the Army, than do minorities and the poor. If we compare the communities where citizen pressure and legislative action has forced the Army to abandon incineration in favor of safer, neutralization technologies to the communities that are stuck with toxic burners, a clear picture emerges.  Communities getting alternative technologies for disposal include following.
    Clearly, the communities that have been saddled with toxics-emitting incinerator complexes are the communities that have a much higher percentage low-income and/or minority  populations while the wealthier and whiter communities benefit from more controlled, non-emissive destruction methods..
 
A Closer Look at Two Incinerator Sites  

    Kalama Island (or Johnston Atoll, as the Army calls it) is a special case of intense, long-term hazardous abuse. The entire Pacific has historically been viewed as an expendable zone for the US military. In the late 1950s and early 60s, the islands were used for nuclear tests and anti-satellite missile tests. The first nuclear bombs to be exploded in the stratosphere by the US were off Kalama in 1958.  In 1962 two Thor missiles burst into flames on the launch pad scattering plutonium all over the atoll and into the sea.
   
    In 1971, 41 acres of land on the southwest shore of Kalama Island were set aside for use by the Army as a chemical agent and munitions storage area. In that same year the chemical weapons stockpile from Okinawa, Japan (Operation Red Hat), was moved to Kalama .  Early in 1972, 22,000 55-gallon drums of agent orange were moved from Vietnam to Kalama. These drums were removed from the atoll in 1977 and incinerated at sea aboard the Dutch ship Vulcanus.  However, due to spills and leaks an estimated 250,000 lbs. of the agent have contaminated the underlying soils.  Kalama Island has been used for all kinds of military activities, including biological warfare studies, nuclear testing, missile testing, anti-satellite weapon deployment and chemical weapons.
   
    The military's announcement of plans to build an incinerator on Kalama in the early 1980s triggered widespread opposition.   Despite resistance from Pacific Islanders, the Army was issued a ten-year permit, by Region IX, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency located in San Francisco, about 3,300 miles away,  to construct and run the system in 1985. Pacific outrage came to a head in 1989 with the announcement that 100,000 munitions would be transported from Germany to Kalama. Pacific nations felt betrayed by the move because, according to the Army's 1983 Final Environmental Impact Statement, there was to be no additional transportation of chemical weapons to the atoll.
   
    There is a widespread belief among Pacific Islanders that the U.S. continues to cling to an outmoded view of the Pacific Ocean as a vast, empty region where hazardous materials can be disposed of without serious consequences to people and the environment. It is a view entirely at odds with the growing social, political and economic realities of today's world as well as with the current understanding of how the ocean environment serves to unite rather than separate peoples. These emerging perceptions confirm the indigenous perspective of the Pacific Ocean as a life-giving force. Physical events in any one place in the Pacific, however remote, potentially affect lands and peoples thousands of miles away. What happens on Kalama Island has the potential to affect Hawai'i, and has a greater potential to affect the 50,000 residents of the Marshall Islands. The ocean waters are in constant motion and are subject to winds and currents circulating throughout the Pacific.
   
    The near surface microlayers of the marine waters are rich with biogenic materials that serve as a food source for many commercially important fish and shellfish. Contamination of the Pacific waters threatens the well-being of the indigenous peoples who live closest to it and depend upon on it for food and economic sustenance. Emissions of dioxins, heavy metals and other contaminants from the nerve gas incinerators concentrate in the sea surface microlayer and have a detrimental effect upon the populations of dependent species, particularly on the highly migratory marine life.  Polluting the oceans is a catastrophe which will take place slowly over time and is likely to be ignored until too late.
   
    Kalama and other Pacific Islands and the US state of Hawai'i constitute a part of the world populated by indigenous peoples who have been colonized, experimented with and dumped on since the 19th century.  Clearly, environmental injustice has been an historic phenomenon in this part of the world and continues to be. Despite protests from the Pacific Forum (representing fifteen Pacific Island nations, including Australia and New Zealand), the Pacific Asia Council of Indigenous Peoples, the Pacific Council of Churches, the Pacific Island Association of Non-Governmental Organizations and many other groups and organizations, the Army pursued its flawed incineration operations for 10 years, until completing operations in late 2000.
   
    According to Poka Laenui, President , Pacific Asia Council of Indigenous Peoples , "Pacific Islanders beyond U.S. jurisdictional boundaries, although affected by polluting activities, are not consulted prior to potentially devastating conduct. We suffer environmental injustice at an international level without any adequate forum of appeal"  (Alailima).

     Another crass example of environmental injustice within the Army’s chemical weapons destruction program is Anniston, Alabama, a community already contaminated well beyond what any community should ever be.  Blood samples taken from children in West Anniston have shown the highest levels of PCBs ever recorded.  In addition, lead and mercury have now been identified in high concentrations, and  it has recently been discovered that TCEs (Trichloroethylene) are  leaching into the area’s aquifer. The incineration of  chemical weapons in this community will result in 10+ years of PCBs, lead, mercury and a host of other known and unknown toxins being emitted into its already dangerously contaminated environment. 
   
    Organizations and individual citizens fought the proposed incinerator for years, but nonetheless, the weapons incinerator fired up on August 9, 2003. The residents’ objections to incineration have taken many forms, including demonstrations, political action, community organizing, litigation and community education.  A central aspect of the Anniston fight has been a focus on environmental racism. Local and regional environmental activists have been joined by social justice and civil rights organizations in an attempt to shine light on the calculated and cold-hearted discrimination demonstrated by the Army in its chemical weapons disposal program.  One of the organizations committed to the fight against incineration has deep roots in the birth of the U.S. civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama in the 1950s.  Leaders at all levels of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) - which spawned the two most well-known civil rights proponents in the U.S., Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth -has been actively involved in the Anniston fight.  Understanding the obvious inequality in the siting of the chemical weapons incinerator in Anniston, the SCLC has expressed its position clearly and consistently. 
   
    A year after adopting the following Resolution , SCLC leadership joined with over 30 organizations to march through Anniston in September 2002. Speaking at the rally following the march, the Rev. Shuttlesworth, still active after all these years, stated,

“Anniston is the place to break the back of pollution, just like we broke the back of segregation in Birmingham” (Common Sense 5).
RESOLUTION
Adopted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
August 8,  2001
Forty-third Annual National Convention
Montgomery, Alabama


WHEREAS,    Presidential Executive Order Number 12898 states that, “... each Federal Agency shall make achieving Environmental Justice part of its mission by identifying and addressing, as appropriate, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of its programs, policies, and activities on minority populations and low-income populations in the United States...”, and,

WHEREAS,    Forty years ago, The United States Army brought, 2,300 tons of Sarin (GB), VX and mustard gas into Calhoun County under a cloak of secrecy, and

WHEREAS,    These chemical agents are the deadliest compounds on the face of the earth, and

WHEREAS,    The United States Army chose to store these agents, which are contained in 660,000 munitions and armaments as well as bulk storage containers at the Anniston Army Depot (ANAD), which is located in the middle of a population center, and

WHEREAS,    The residents of the communities and neighborhoods closest to the Anniston Army  Depot are disproportionately African-American and lower income populations, and

WHEREAS,   These neighborhoods have a disproportionate number of African-American and lower income senior citizens, single parent families, children and handicapped individuals, and

WHEREAS,    The U.S. Army plans to destroy this chemical weapon stockpile using an open combustion incinerator which has been constructed next to the stockpile in the middle of this population center, and

WHEREAS,    The two previous incinerators operated by the Army at Johnson Atoll and Tooele, Utah have experienced chronic upset conditions, technical malfunctions, power outages and other events labeled by the Army as “unusual incidents,” which have led to chemical weapons agent (CWA) releases and nonprotective levels of other toxic emissions,  and

WHEREAS,    The United States Environmental Protection Agency admits that this incinerator will emit into the atmosphere, during normal plan operations, the following chemicals: CWA,  dioxins, lead, mercury, chromium, cadmium, PCBs and other carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic health impacting chemicals, and

WHEREAS,    This ANAD incinerator will release higher levels of these materials under upset conditions, and

WHEREAS,    Whereas, residents of communities and neighborhoods living near the chemical stockpile have already been exposed to excessive levels of PCBs, lead and mercury, and

WHEREAS,    The Secretary of Defense has a statutory duty to provide “maximum protection” to the citizens living near a chemical weapons stockpile, and in attempting to meet this “maximum protection” duty the Army and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have produced a Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Guidebook recommending Calhoun County officials instruct the 36,000 residents living closest to the chemical weapons stockpile to attempt to place duct tape and plastic sheeting around their windows and doors in less than eight minutes as their only means of protection in the event of a chemical accident at ANAD, and

WHEREAS,    The Calhoun County Commission has refused to accept the Guidebook’s recommendations because the Guidebook is based on numerous false and faulty assumptions regarding the true toxicity of the chemical agents stored at ANAD, as well as numerous other errors, and because the Commission believes duct tape and plastic sheeting will not protect the 36,000 citizens closest to the chemical weapons stockpile, and

WHEREAS,    Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, in response to letters from the Calhoun County Commission, has written to Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld and President Bush stating unequivocally that the Governor will not allow the State of Alabama to begin destroying these chemical weapons until: the true toxicity of these agents have been determined; an independent toxicologist has been hired and paid for by the federal government to verify the federal government’s findings; a critical software upgrade for Calhoun County’s EMA has been fully developed and installed; proper 24 hour manning of the Calhoun County EMA has been provided; an early warning system involving emergency preparedness personnel at ANAD has been instituted; all the tone alert radios have been installed; the 3,900 individuals in Calhoun County with special needs and who can not protect themselves in the event of an accident have been properly taken care of; the 38 hospitals, schools, nursing homes and senior citizens centers in Calhoun County that the Army FEMA promised in 1995 to collectively protect have been fully overpressurized; and

WHEREAS,    Governor Siegelman has the clear authority to prevent the destruction process at ANAD from being allowed to begin until all of these safety measures are fully implemented and the federal government has met its statutory duty to provide “maximum protection” to these citizens, and

WHEREAS,    The Department of Defense has identified and successfully demonstrated non- incineration disposal technologies that would eliminate or significantly reduce the possibility of the release of CWA,  dioxins, lead, mercury, chromium, cadmium, PCBs and other carcinogenic and noncarcinogenic health impacting chemicals, and 

WHEREAS,    Failure to provide the “maximum protection” statutory requirement would violate Presidential Executive Order Number 12898, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and EPA Regulations providing for nondiscrimination in programs receiving federal assistance under 40 C.F.R. Part 7B: 

THEREFORE,    be it resolved by the 2001 Southern Christian Leadership Conference National Convention that:
  1. The federal government has failed to meet its statutory duty to provide “maximum protection” to the people of Calhoun County in general and to the African American communities in West and South Anniston in particular, and
  2. The federal government has failed to ensure the protection of the rights of the minority populations surrounding ANAD under Presidential Executive Order Number 12898, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and EPA Regulations providing for nondiscrimination in programs receiving federal assistance under 40 C.F.R. Part 7B, and
  3. The federal government’s proposed protective action recommendation of duct tape and plastic sheeting is wholly inadequate for the African American community, which is composed disproportionately of senior citizens, single parent families, children who are oftentimes unsupervised after school, and individuals whose immune systems have already been compromised due to excessive exposure to PCBs, mercury and lead, which were illegally dumped into the local Anniston environment for many years, and
  4. Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has shown both foresight and leadership by publicly informing Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush that he will not allow the destruction process to proceed until every item enumerated by his April 25, 2001 letter has been fully complied with, and
  5. The Calhoun County Commission has also shown both foresight leadership by refusing to accept the Army and FEMA’s proposed protective action recommendation and to adopt the use of the Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Guidebook, and
  6. Calhoun County Commissioner James “Pappy” Dunn has shown great dedication and determination in his actions regarding this issue in the best interests of the Alabama African- American community, and


BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED by the SCLC National Convention that:
  1. The issues presented by the chemical weapons stockpile in Calhoun County raise serious questions of racial and environmental injustice which require the immediate attention of the Congressional Black Caucus, and
  2. The inability of the federal government to remedy each of the problems discussed by Governor Siegelman and identified by the Calhoun County Commission and referenced in this resolution shows that the current incineration technology is not a viable approach for destroying the chemical weapons stockpile in Calhoun County and requires that the incinerator be retrofitted with an alternative technology which is less intrusive and more environmentally benign for the destruction of the stockpile.
  3. The governor of the State of Alabama along with all Alabama Federal elected officials be provided a copy of this Resolution.
   

Signed:   Board of Directors, SCLC       Date:  August 8, 2001

 
   
    Although the Army has succeeded in firing up the Anniston incinerator, the fight has not stopped. Two lawsuits are currently being pursued to stop the burn and, in the meantime, efforts to force accountability and oversight continue.
   
    It was announced on March 1 of this year that the Anniston incinerator, located in the most PCBs-contaminated community in the country, has been emitting PCBs at levels higher than those allowed by the U.S. EPA-issued permit  (ANCDF).  Safer methods of chemical weapons disposal that do not emit toxic chemicals like PCBs are known, proven and being deployed in wealthier and whiter communities.  Purposefully and unnecessarily dumping ANY additional pollutants on Anniston’s population is discriminatory, immoral and unconscionable.  
   
    And just when you might think it couldn’t get any worse. . . the effects of the Army’s intolerable use of incineration in Anniston travels far outside that Alabama community.
   
    Despite the common perception that hazardous waste incineration significantly reduces the waste being processed to a small amount of non-toxic ashes, the fact is that a greater quantity of toxic by-products result from the process than the quantity of waste burned.
   
    The ratio of hazardous waste created per pound of chemical warfare agent processed at the Alabama incineration facility is anticipated to be 15:1, based on results from the Utah incinerator  (Utah Department of Solid and Hazardous Waste).  It is estimated that burning  the 4.5 million pounds of chemical agents contained in the Anniston stockpile will produce 67.5 million pounds of hazardous waste to be shipped off site for incineration or landfilling in other communities that are also minority and low-income.

    These hazardous wastes include, but are not limited to:
 Can you predict the demographics of where this material is headed? Hazardous waste from the Anniston burn plant is slated to go to the following locations:
  1. an incinerator (ONYX Corp.) in East St. Louis, IL--97.7% African American, 31.8% below poverty level;
  2. a landfill (Waste Management, Inc.) in Emelle, AL--93.5% African American, 66.7% below the poverty level;
  3. an incinerator (ONYX Corp) in Port Authur, TX--67.2% minority (43.7% African-Am, 17.5% Hispanic, 6% Asian), 28% below the poverty level;
  4. a landfill (Superior Cedar Hill Landfill) in Ragland, AL--17% African American, 15.3% below the poverty level; and
  5. interim storage (ONYX Corp.) in Creedmor, NC--27% African American; 13.2% below the poverty level.  Waste will be mixed with other hazardous waste then shipped to East St. Louis or Port Arthur for incineration (ADEM 2003, U.S. Census Bureau).
    In that the target sites for the toxic waste coming from the Anniston incinerator are all low-income and minority communities, the Army’s chemical weapons destruction program must be adjudged one of the most blatant examples of environmental injustice by any one federal agency ever perpetrated.
Conclusion
   
    We all know that the voices of politically disenfranchised minorities and the poor have been ignored for too long.  Measurable achievements on one front are offset by gross manifestations of racial and class discrimination on another.  Inequality in the form of racism and classism continues to haunt our nation.   Minority and low-income communities continue to be knowingly poisoned by corporations and most appallingly by agencies of the federal government.
   
    The blatant environmental injustice that is embedded within the Pentagon’s chemical weapons disposal program exemplifies the worst of such conduct. 
   
    Thus the struggle for environmental justice continues through the efforts of activists across the counrty and around the world.  In the case of chemical weapons disposal, communities saddled with incinerators pesevere in their pursuit for just treatment and demands for equality.
   
    In the words of the Reverend  Raleigh Trammell , Vice-chairman of the National Board of the SCLC, when speaking against the Pentagon’s bigotry,  “We cannot tolerate and will not stand for it.  We’ll do whatever is necessary to prevent it “ (Common Sense 7).


References

Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM).   “Hazardous Waste Facility Permit: Issued to U.S. Department of the Army, Anniston Army Depot.”  1997.

Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM): Communication with Chemical Weapons Working Group; 2003.

Alailima, Kilali.  “Background Information on Kalama Island.”  White Paper Published by the Chemical Weapons Working Group.  1995.

ANCDF: Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility.  “EPA Requests Additional Data Following Facility Shakedown.”  March 4, 2004.

Arkansas Department of Pollution Control and Ecology (ADPCE). “Hazardous Waste Facility Permit: Issued to U.S. Department of the Army, Pine Bluff Arsenal.”  1997.
 
Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, 1997.  March 9, 2004. <http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_frameset.html>.

“Common Sense.”  October 2002.  Newsletter Published by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation for the Chemical Weapons Working Group.  <http://www.cwwg.org/2002bhot.html>.

Environmental Justice Resource Center.  March 6, 2004.  “Principles of Environmental Justice.” <http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/princej.html.>

Environmental Justice Resource Center.  March 8, 2004.  “Environmental Justice Timeline/Milestones.”  <http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/EJSUMMITwlecome.html>.

Marshall, Suzanne.   “Chemical Weapons Disposal and Environmental Justice.”  Research Paper Published by the Kentucky Environmental Foundation Publication. 1996.

Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (ODEQ).  “Hazardous Waste Facility Permit: Issued to U.S. Department of the Army, Umatilla Chemical Depot.”  1997.

Otaguro, E.  “Contamination of the Pacific.” 1991.

People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.  October 27, 1991. <http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/princej.html>.

“President’s Executive Order on Environmental  Justice.”  Section 1-101.  February 11, 1994.
Program Manager for the Elimination of Chemical Weapons: March 12 2004 :.http://www-pmcd.apgea.army.mil/default.asp

The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit.  Washington, DC.  January 15, 1991.

U.S. Census Bureau.  2000.

U.S. General Accounting Office.  “Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation With Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities.”  GAO/RCED-83-168, B-211461. June 1, 1983.

United Church of Christ, Commission for Racial Justice. Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites. 1987.

United States Army Record(s) of Decision (ROD).  2002, 2003, 1997.

United States Congress.  Public Law 99-145. 1985.  

United States Congressional Record:  Senate. April 24, 1997.

Utah Department of Solid and Hazardous Waste (UDSHW).  “TOCDF Hazardous Waste Off-Site Disposal Activities.”  1998.